>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: too much
>>Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001

I hate school. When I woke up today, I didn't feel all that bad. I didn't feel like singing, but I didn't feel too horrible. Leave it to everyone else on the planet to take that away from me. Just being forced to look at them and be near them and listen to the inane, insipid things they decide to occupy themselves with. I spent a month away from it, and I don't know why it affected me so much, but their shallowness was almost unbearable today. I met three people who are now very much on my shit list. One of them sits right in front of me, and it'll be amazing if I get through the semester without strangling him. I'm sure I'll fantasize about it at least once a day.

School is going to be so fucking easy. I thought some of these classes would provide some sort of challenge, but this is like preschool shit. I didn't feel like going to my last class today because I needed a fucking drink so badly. It's just a philosophy class, anyway. They never take attendance.

God, the more I think about people, the angrier I get. It seems like all you need to be happy is to be so fucking stupid you can't even begin to think about anything that could possibly mean something. People say that what separates man from the other animals is his capacity to think and reason, but I disagree. That's what separates you and me from other human beings: we think and reason, and it makes us absolutely miserable. We have that small satisfaction of knowing we are seeing what really is and knowing that we're better than what is commonly regarded as "mankind," but beyond that, there's nothing worthwhile about having that sort of vision. We're just outnumbered. We're screaming our reason out only to have it drowned by the idiotic laughter and relentless babbling of mankind.

I'm so tired, Perdita. I feel like Laocoon with Neptune's serpents racing up his legs as he tries to tell the truth to the Trojans about the danger lying within the horse they just let into their city gates. The more I scream, the faster those snakes are going to reach my throat. I just don't know what I can or even want to do anymore. I'm just so ready for this chore called existence to be over so I can lay down in my peaceful bed and exist for the rest of eternity in nothingness. Nothingness scares most people because of the emptiness of it, but nothingness is the only thing that can bring me peace, and when I find it, I will finally be content. If I could, I'd smile, but I'm just as glad knowing I won't be able to smile. My mood has done a total 180 since I woke up this morning. If I had stayed in and not seen anyone, maybe I'd still be hanging onto that feeling of near-contentment that greeted me this morning.

Christ. 2:00 in the afternoon and I need a drink so I won't lose my mind. What a wonderful life with so much to live for. And I can still guarantee you with absolute certainty that almost no one will understand why suicide is the only possible thing for me to do. "The horror! The horror!" Ugh.

At any rate, I hope you are doing well. I miss you so much. Enjoy the rest of this magnificent Tuesday. With any luck, I'll be blind by 6:00.

I love you.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: too much
>Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2001

Belacqua,

I feel like I can barely convince myself to write to you today because I want so badly to try and fool myself into believing you're not a thousand miles away from here. Things take extraordinarily long to sink into the slush of my brain, so yesterday I was still somewhat convinced that you'd be back any minute.

I'm so fucking useless today. I'm sitting here at work trying like hell to keep myself busy, but of course my brain invariably goes right back to thinking about you. This just isn't RIGHT. It isn't RIGHT that you and I should have to fucking deal with being so goddamn far away from each other. I can't deal with it, and I'm about ready to go postal on the entire fucking world. At least fifty times today, I've gotten so pissed sitting here at my desk that I nearly went over to punch the wall as hard as I could, hopefully breaking my wrist so that everyone would know how fucked up this is. But I just keep sitting, typing up letters that my boss is changing every time I finish them so I have to start all over again.

Christ, I miss you so much. I didn't even try to go to sleep last night till well after midnight (which is really late for me on a weekday) because I knew it would just make me feel worse to lie there trying desperately to fall asleep knowing you weren't gonna be with me. I actually awoke in the middle of the night once while you were here and I guess in my confused state of wake-sleep I had forgotten that you were there, and I turned to my side half-shocked to see you there. It was the coolest thing. Aside from the bit of surprise, I felt so calm and relieved. It's not often that I awake in the middle of the night feeling calm and collected instead of anxious and pissed at the fact that I'm awake again and still alive.

Interestingly enough, I forget which night it was, but one night while you were here, I was lying next to you and I specifically remember what I was thinking at the time. I could feel your breath on my face, and I just listened and relished the feeling and recognized that I was SO THANKFUL that you were alive. That probably sounds dumb, but that's the thought that popped into my head. I was just so thankful that you were alive and lying next to me, and it made me so relieved to know there's one other person in the world who knows what it's like to live in hell all the time. It was comforting, reassuring, and wonderfully sad, all at the same time. But it definitely occurred to me that I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet you and spend time with you and continue knowing I'll see you again. These, of course, are all things that wouldn't have been possible if your trip to the hospital had been a trip to the morgue, so I just thought you should know that I can't even express how much I love you and how much I cherish the fact that you're alive and struggling through this shit with me. This, admittedly, probably contradicts everything we agree on about life sucking major ass and wanting to die and all, but that doesn't change the fact that, while I'm alive, I'm thrilled to know that you're alive, too. And hopefully, both of us will check out soon.

I love you so much.
Perdita